Tag Archives: Google+ Reviews

For those working in search marketing, it seems as though Google’s Knowledge Graph changes monthly. This is particularly true for Local SEO. I recently noticed the inclusion of what appear to be Google reviews within the Knowledge Graph. Mike Blumenthal was able to document this update in an expanded post where he discusses the elements of what the reviews display.document

Not all of the reviews shown on the Knowledge Graph are verbatim from an individual review. Instead, some are composed of certain bolded keywords where a review is an aggregate of several. For example, this hotel, Viceroy Santa Monica, has a reivew visibile with the indication that there are 5 associated reviews.

Who Wrote This Review?

What is even more interesting is to do an exact match search for this review within Google to see what comes up. Some type of mysterious description that is no longer on the Google+ page or even cached. Perhaps this is some type of sentiment aggregation?

The Likely Solution For Review Spam From Google

As I was reading the comments of Mike’s post, an idea sparked regarding the way in which spam will inevitably be dealt with by Google. We all know how Google’s efforts to deal with spam have been everything but a smooth process. Their are countless businesses still trying to recover from Google Panda and sourcing Google+ Local issues can burn valuable time resources.

One comment in particular brought up an anecdote of how participants in Google City Experts are encouraged to leave reviews via their mobile device (would be great if anyone could source these instructions as the FAQ page is minimal).

Google City Experts For The Win

I vaguely remembered hearing about this program some time ago, and now it is very much on my radar. I also just signed up so many more insights to come on this program. I would venture to guess that Google is actively experimenting with this group of reviewers. Experts must review 5x per month to remain on the program. The recommendation to use mobile allows Google to triangulate the position of the reviewer as well as verify their credentials via their Google+ profile.

The key takeaway here involves involves the simultaneous use of both of these concepts. Triangulation can be prone to abuse via fake GPS software. Logging into an online profile cannot 100% verify a visit to specific location unless their is triangulation. At the very least, Google City Experts is being used to populate Google+ Local with as much content as possible. As soon as I signed up, I was taken to the following screen where local places where displayed covering a variety of different types of businesses in a rather random order.

Surprisingly, I have not visited the above places or any that were listed in the personalized Google City Experts welcome page. It’s somewhat intuitive that people would be more interested to review places that they previously visited. I’m surprised that these entities were not more personalized as the data is likely being tracked by Google for those with Google+ profiles.

Is Google ReviewRank Here?

The other dynamic to the situation deals with the authority of the reviewer. Undoubtedly, reviews coming from an individual account that has been verified by Google with a history of high quality reviews will be treated differently than those coming from a recently created Google+ profile with the Gmail [insert business name here]@gmail.com. By verified individual account, I mean that Google has independently verified a Google+ individual profile belonging to someone in the real world.

The other dynamic to the situation deals with the authority of the reviewer. Undoubtedly, reviews coming from an individual account that has been verified by Google with a history of high quality reviews will be treated differently than those coming from a recently created Google+ profile with the Gmail [insert business name here]@gmail.com. By verified individual account, I mean that Google has independently verified a Google+ individual profile belonging to someone in the real world.

Checklist for More Reviews on Google+

More developments to come with this of course. Though the best advice for businesses remains the same. The following checklist can be broken down and applied to a variety of different businesses across several verticals.

Claim the Google+ Local Listing

Optimize with categories, photos, & correct NAP information

Use Moz Local for additional local listing reclamation (though it is somewhat slow)

Take customer surveys & collect data

Remain active on strategic social channels

Identify relevant influences

Ensure a positive customer experience for influencer targets

The aforementioned happens as one component of an SEO campaign for smaller businesses or organizations. For the enterprise, it will be interesting to see how the recently updated Google+ Bulk Upload will accommodate multi-location businesses such as hotels and other national chains.